My current work in progress:

Sweet Shawlettes

Happy New Year! What better way to welcome a new year than with a lovely new book?

This is Sweet Shawlettes by Jean Moss, a collection of 25 patterns for shawlettes, cowls, and other related types of knits. I received a review copy of this book a couple of weeks ago and pronounce it delightful!

The book is divided into 4 sections: Country, Couture, Folk, and Vintage. There is a lovely variety of both types of garments and knitting techniques used. This is not all lace shawls — there is also colorwork, entrelac, texture, and cables. A little something for everyone.

My faves:

From the Country section, I love “Green at Heart,” a button-up cowl.

From Couture, here is “Enigma,” a poncho-type garment with an intriguing shape and a cozy turtleneck.

From Folk, “Polperro” combines lace and texture.

And from Vintage, what I think is my favorite design in the book: “Kitty,” an adorable capelet.

I have long been a fan of Jean Moss’ designs and was delighted to have the opportunity to conduct a brief interview with her.

Wendy: How long have you been knitting and who taught you?

Jean: Originally I learned to knit before I went to school because I wanted to be like my beloved grandmother who spent hours teaching me. A fallow period ensued but my interest was rekindled in my teens when I started to make my own clothes. It was the swinging sixties and I loved what I was seeing on the street and in magazines, but had no way of achieving anything similar other than to pick up my needles again. From then on I was hooked. It never occurred to me that I’d ever be able to make a living out of it, especially as I had no formal training in design, but after getting requests for sweaters I’d made for the kids, I decided that it might be a way of making some extra cash from home. No-one was more surprised than I was to find that very quickly I was presenting my designs to luminaries such as Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein and they were placing orders! It was a meteoric learning curve. The business quickly mushroomed and I developed my own line alongside the design and production I was doing for US stores and designers. We ultimately had two thousand knitters in the UK – all stemming from my need to express myself creatively.

Wendy: Sweet Shawlettes is such a unique collection because there are so many different techniques covered in the patterns — lace, texture, colorwork. Do you have a favorite, or do you enjoy all more or less equally?

Jean: I was asked to write Sweet Shawlettes out of the blue by Erica Sanders-Foege, a senior editor at The Taunton Press. I immediately loved the idea as previously most of my books have concentrated on sweaters, and this gave me the opportunity to explore a totally different form. Shawls, capes, cowls, furbelows or anything that can be worn around the neck was the brief and I was excited to explore as many ways of interpreting it as I could.

My mind spun with the millions of options, so I knew I would have to edit, edit, edit. I started the task of narrowing them down with a book plan: the skeleton of the four chapters – Country, Couture, Folk and Vintage – what would inspire them and also the yarns, colours, techniques which would be showcased in each. I reasoned that small projects could be fantastic tasters for new skills, without the commitment of a larger piece, either in time or yarn. So when I started to flesh out the chapters, I had the intention of including various techniques I particularly enjoy. However, the realisation quickly dawned that I’m an absolute technique junkie, as I found it hard to exclude anything, so I decided I’d go for it and include as many as I could, which hopefully would also give the book another dimension.

Not sure whether you’re asking about my favourite technique or project, but these days my knitting is usually restricted to swatches for new designs and no-brainers for winding down, although I do love working with colour, so the odd bit of fair isle often slips in as well as various modular knits. I have to admit that I’m just as much a product as a process knitter so I always ask myself whether or not I’d like to wear a piece I’m designing and if the answer is no then I lose interest. I’ve loved each project in turn as I’ve designed them. However, the project I chose to knit for friends this Xmas was Drift from the Couture chapter. I love big cables and this easy cowl has the bonus that it’s quick to knit and fabulously wearable – I’ve rarely had such positive feedback from everyone who received it!

Wendy: Do you still sing with the Purly Kings? 🙂

Jean: The Purly Kings was an impromptu band, put together to make the CD More Yarn Will Do The Trick, a trio of yarn related songs. It came about as my friend, Paul Darby, was already in a band called the Dubious Brothers, a man-band with definitely no women, so I asked them to do a one-off recording as session musicians. Paul and I go back a long way and our musical tastes are fairly similar, so I was confident it would be doable. Sadly I’m bandless as the moment, but one of my New Year’s resolutions is to get out and play more music, so if you know anyone who wants to join me, do let me know.

Giveaway!

Would you like to win a copy of this lovely book? Leave a comment on this blog post by Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 11:00am eastern time. A winner will be chosen at random at that time.

This review is only one stop on the Sweet Shawlettes blog tour. The full tour schedule is below:

The book sounds great… but the blog tour will get me fired! I read your blog early in the am EST here from Baltimore… but I must go back to work before I get in too much trouble. Lunch time surfing is all set up for today!

It’s very unusual for me to like more than one or two patterns in any given book. So imagine my surprise when I found myself oohing and aching over so many. Yes, Please. I’d love to win a copy of this book. Thank you for offering it, and thank you Jean Moss for writing it!

Hmmm – usually cross off shawlettes as something I don’t need to even look at, but you’ve piqued my interest me with the photos. “Something for everyone” means something for me! Oh no, more yarn p0rn to tempt me!

I love to knit shawlettes, and cowls, etc. as gifts. I have the chance to use some beautiful yarn, interesting techniques, and I know the finished work will fit the recipient. It’s a great idea for a book (the designs look lovely) and I think the idea of a blog tour is brilliant!

this is nice to start a new year ! happy thoughts for you and your family and to all of your visitors here. This book looks indeed very nice with lovely patterns with some lovely patterns. Thinking on some gifts to make …
have a nice day

Thank you SO much for offering this new book. There are so many being published that it’s not possible to keep track of them all, but when you call our attention to one we can be sure it’s worth a 2nd look. and then a 3rd. and oh, my, yes!! I knew the vintage chapter would probably be my favorite, but every chapter has something just so perfect for someone and really worth my knitting time.

As to dearest Lucy, she’s a real pro when it comes to posing. The camera comes out and she automatically strikes a pose.

I’d love to win a copy of the book – it looks like there are some beautiful patterns. I like the idea of using the shawlettes to practice with new techniques!Amber´s last blog post ..I’d pay good money for an elf.

My first reaction was that shawlettes might be hard to wear, but it looks like some of them are an advance in making scarves easy to wear.Laura Conrad´s last blog post ..News of the week of December 27, 2011

Happy New Year, Wendy!!! I hope this year is the best ever for you, Lucy, KOARK, and all of your family and friends!!
The book looks very interesting and I found that I like shawlettes this past year!!Shama D´s last blog post ..My Changing Life

Hi Wendy! Hope your Christmas went well. I would love a chance at this book. I think some of these patterns would be very nice for the ladies at the rehab and nursing home I spent time in last year. I would like to do something for them, just to cover their shoulders, and shawlettes are perfect and hadn’t occurred to me yet. :S As always thanks for sharing. You are a very generous person!

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